Although initially bearish on the prospects of UFC 102’s drawing power, UFC president Dana White was pleased to announce that Saturday’s event drew 16,088 attendees for a $1.92 million gate.

The gate is the fifth-largest in Oregon combat-sports history, White said in the night’s post-event press conference.

As recently as this past week, White said he’d be happy if the event drew just 10,000 fans.

The pay-per-view show, the UFC’s first in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, took place at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira topped fellow ex-champion and Oregon native Randy Couture in the night’s long-awaited heavyweight main event.

On Saturday White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) he’d be “pumped” to sell just 10,000 tickets for the 20,000-seat arena. Largely tempering his expectations was Portland’s unemployment rate, which is hovering around 12 percent.

“Did we come in here and blow it out of the water and sell it out and everything?” White pondered prior to the show. “No. But listen, in this economy right now, (if) we go in and we sell 10,000 tickets, I’m pumped. You know what I mean?

“There’s baseball and basketball and all these other big, major sports right now that are hurting, and people aren’t buying tickets, and people aren’t spending money.”

With solid late sales, the event pulled in respectable numbers, though the Oregon athletic commission won’t make the official figures available until later this week.

Regardless, White said Portland will, in fact, get another show. But up first is another regional city.

“Next time we come back here, we’ll probably go to Seattle,” White said at the post-fight press conference. “Then we’ll come back here.”

He said the Portland crowd provided one of the most intense atmospheres since the historic UFC 68 event in Columbus, Ohio, in 2006.

“My ears are still ringing,” White said.

For complete coverage of the event, check out the UFC 102 section of the site.